US colleges cut deal on digital fair use

In a move to tackle copyright breaches by universities, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) has agreed guidelines on the use of digital content with the US universities of Hofstra, Syracuse and Marquette.

The guidelines recognise that content delivered to students in digital formats should be treated on the basis of the same copyright principles that apply to printed materials.

Allan Adler, vice president for legal and government affairs at the AAP, said the misuse of digital materials at universities had been causing concern for some time. Whereas universities were clear about copyright for printed materials, he said they were often flouting copyright by making materials available to students electronically on library servers or learning platforms.

Adler said that when the AAP researched the issue, it found widespread breaches of copyright.

“Professors were making digital material the entire course curriculum reading requirement,” Adler said, “and it was being put up there with no permissions and no fees, under the claim that it was all ‘fair use’.”

Adler added that there was widespread misunderstanding about the meaning of ‘fair use’: “There are professors and students who believe that if you’re using material for the first time in this manner, that’s automatically fair use. There are other professors who would use this material from one academic term to another and still think it was fair use.”

The AAP approached individual universities about their practices. The first institution to reach an agreement with the AAP, in 2006, was Cornell University.

Having now reached agreement with four institutions, the AAP hopes other colleges will quickly follow suit.

“We’re hoping we can create a critical mass of acceptance of these basic principles within the university community, so schools will go ahead and adopt them on their own,” said Adler.

He added that the AAP would prefer to reach a national agreement with all universities, but said that each institution regarded itself as an independent player with its own specific requirements.

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